In my last post about Globish, I took the prevalence of the phenomenon for granted. Chiefly because I've been so close to the idea for the last four years, I didn't offer sufficient examples of Globish at work today to illustrate my theory.

Actually, it's not difficult to find Globish in all walks of life – finance, diplomacy, international aid, media and trade. The globalisation of virtually every international transaction means that Globish has become the default position for hedge fund managers, call-centre employees, international civil servants, writers, journalists and even artists.

Last week's Observer, opened at random, had three examples of what I'm describing. It will be obvious from these examples that Globish is as much a cultural as a linguistic phenomenon, though clearly the linguistic dimension is the dominant one.

Firstly, backing up my view that Globish describes a process that is contagious, adaptable, populist and even subversive, there's the story of the Zimbabwean artist Owen Maseko.

Owen Maseko is Zimbabwe's most prominent artist. Having defied the dictatorial rule of Robert Mugabe. he faces trial for "undermining the authority of the president". His latest exhibition "Sibathontisele" (Let's Drip on Them) was closed down by the police soon after it opened at the National Gallery in Bulawayo.

Maseko's work is a moving protest against the violence and bloodshed in Zimbabwe. What's Globish about it? Well, in many of the canvases, Maseko used scraps of English ("tortured and killed"; "place your ballot here") to identify his themes. Although the exhibition will be visited by Zimbabweans speaking local languages, to internationalise his protest Maseko has defaulted to Globish, a language historically encrypted with ideas of individual human rights.

Secondly, and quite differently, there is the case of Canada's leading writer Margaret Atwood, who is now not only blogging but tweeting to promote her latest novel, The Year of the Flood. She describes having 33,000 followers on her microblogging site as "like having 33,000 precocious grandchildren". But she is doing this, worldwide, in English, coining her own acronyms – WITWCT (What Is The World Coming To) and KMDWAF (Knock Me Down With A Feather) – both of which in their blunt simplicity and universal intelligibility are pure Globish.

Finally, there's Sri Lanka, and the aftermath of the war against the Tamil Tigers. A year after the defeat of the LTTE, Sri Lanka's vociferous minority (between 15% and 20% of the country's 22 million inhabitants) are demanding an end to discrimination in employment, culture and language. But, to do this, and attract the attention of the world's media, they use English. Jason Burke's report in the Observer quoted Tamil protesters demanding a referendum on nationhood and sovereignty, but without a return to bloodshed. "There is peace now," said one man. "Before there was war and times were very difficult. We don't want to go back to all that."

Globish is a simplified version of English. Those few sentences exemplify the way in which it can be adopted to highlight a special interest in virtually any context.